“If this gets out now, it could jeopardize the future of the company, as well as our jobs,” he says slowly. “I need to know I can rely on your discretion.”

“Guy, you can depend on us. This won’t get out.” Nigel sounds amazingly calm, like an actor in a spy film or something. An actor with a really nasal London accent who sweats a lot.

Guy forces himself to smile as he stands up, but his forehead is creased in concentration.

Personally, I’m grinning ear to ear. We’re not fired! Not only does Guy not suspect us of giving him the information, but he’s putting his trust in us to find out what’s going on! We are truly employees of the month!

Nigel is also looking visibly relieved. “It worked!” he whispers as we wait for the lift. “He didn’t suspect a thing! And now we’ve got the go-ahead to do somereal research.”

“Real?” I say uncertainly. “You do mean legal, don’t you?”

“Sometimes you need to bend the law to get the information you need,” says Nigel and his eyes are glinting. I wonder if Guy quite realizes what he is getting us all into.

Back at my desk I try to work out if there’s any way I can talk David round without having to steal the disk from him. But each time I think I’ve found the right words, I realize that by admitting that I know all about it, I’ll be revealing that I’ve been seeing Mike, and I just can’t risk it. If David doesn’t know I went to Rome to meet Mike, imagine how he’ll react if he finds out what I’ve been up to! It’s no good—I’m going to have to go through with it.

My phone rings and I answer it to find Nigel on the other line. Even though his desk is about five feet away from mine.

“Um, Nigel, why are you calling me?”

“It’s quieter. Honestly, Georgie, you’re going to have to learn how to do this sort of work.

Right, I’m going to dig around HG some more and see what I can find.”

As he talks I can see him shoving everything on his desk to one side. That is so unlike Nigel—

he isn’t even labeling anything! I miss most of what he’s saying because I’m so preoccupied with his new approach to paperwork, but I tune back in to the conversation to hear him say

“What I want you to do is to find out more about Tryton. If they are involved in all the mergers, we need to know who they are—the people who run it, the investors, that kind of thing. Okay?”

I think it’s okay. I mean, it’s not the sort of research I usually do—it’s not just a case of ringing up some accountants or lawyers and asking their opinion on something—but it beats having to think about the Zip disk and Mike.

“Leave it with me,” I say in businesslike terms, and put the phone down purposefully. It feels good to have something proper to do. Something that is going to make a difference. I am Georgie Beauchamp, Private Investigator. It’s just me and Nigel against the world. Well, against a rather large accountancy publishing company anyway.

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Frankly, research isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I mean, it’s exciting to start with, but then it turns into work and that’s pretty boring really. Tryton seem to be involved in everything from financing companies and buying them, to managing mergers and advising on acquisitions.

They’ve been involved in hundreds of companies in the past few years, including every publishing company HG has been associated with, and it’s making my brain ache tracking everything they’ve done.

I’ve written a list of the personnel on the new pad that I’ve just taken out of the stationery cupboard. I know I could easily type them onto a Word document, but having a notepad feels more gritty and exciting. Like I’m a reporter or something taking important notes. And to make it a bit more interesting, I’ve written each name in a different color, and assigned them each a Clue character—it’s a lot more fun that way. There’s a Duncan Taylor at the helm—he’s the chairman (Colonel Mustard, written in yellow). Then there’s a Graham Brightman, who’s chief executive (Professor Plum, written in purple), and Jane Larcombe, who’s the finance director (Miss Scarlet, written in red). I underline each name for good measure. For some reason, the name Duncan Taylor rings some sort of bell with me, but I can’t think why. I had a teacher at school called Duncan Mailor, so maybe that’s it.

To be honest, I’m pretty bored with all this. And even if the company is sold, or merged or whatever, it’s not exactly the end of the world. I’m sure I can get another job. Probably a better one. I halfheartedly dig around a bit more and find a whole load of boring information aimed at investors, which I print out. I don’t really understand it, but I’m sure Nigel will be impressed when I present it to him. Actually, this investigative work is pretty easy really. You just go to a Web site and copy stuff off it. I don’t know how much people are paid for this kind of work, but I’m sure it’s too much. Except for me, obviously.

I log on to Reuters and do a search under “Tryton.” To my surprise there’s loads of stuff, so I print all that, too. Then I do a search for HG and print a whole load more pages. I start feeling a lot better. I’m going to have a brilliantly huge pile of paper for Nigel to go through, I think as I happily watch pages spew onto the floor.

Nigel gets up and walks over to the printer. He picks up the pages for me and brings them over.

Now that’s what you call teamwork.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he hisses.

“Research! I’m getting loads of stuff for you to go through!”

“Georgie.” Nigel’s fists are clenched. “Did you understand when Guy talked about discretion?”

“Yes, of course I did,” I whisper confidently. “We’ve got to keep our mouths shut. I understand perfectly!”

“So then you may not want to have these pages coming out all over the floor. You may like to wait at the printer rather than leave them for someone else to find.”

Nigel stomps back to his desk. Honestly, I think he might be taking this a bit far, but he is a paranoia junkie.

I read through all the pages of names and numbers, hoping that something will come out and grab me like in Agatha Christie novels and I can say “Of course, they did it with mirrors” or something and I’ll have solved the mystery. But instead my eyes glaze over as I turn to story after story about finance and shares and profits and really boring stuff like that, and apart from some of the names being the same again and again, there’s nothing else that stands out at all.

When I’ve got a sufficiently impressive pile of papers, I decide I need a break, and I go out to buy a sandwich for lunch, which I eat at my desk. I am enjoying the feeling of doing something important. I feel all charged up and serious. I finally understand what David meant when he said that he really enjoys his work and how once he gets started on a case he can’t stop till it’s finished. Maybe I could get a job as a top research analyst for the government or something. I think I’d be really good at it. Maybe I should get David to introduce me to someone at the fraud office.

By the end of the day I have a pile of papers that is about four inches high. I did actually take a rather extended lunch break (Denise boughtHeat magazine at lunchtime and I spent most of the afternoon reading it), but still, it’s not how long you work, but what you achieve that matters, and I even had to go to the stationery cupboard to get more paper for the printer. How dedicated is that? I call up Nigel—I think he’ll prefer that to me walking over to his desk.

“Nigel, I’ve got some interesting information,” I say, imagining I’m Scully from “The X-Files.”

“Maybe you should come over and take a look at it.”

Nigel doesn’t say anything; he just puts the phone down and comes over. This is so much better than what we used to do. He arrives at my desk looking quite exhilarated. “So what have you got?”

I show him my pile of printouts with a confident smile.

“Right,” he begins uncertainly. “But what’s the interesting information?”

“All of it!” I whisper excitedly. “I’ve got piles of stuff on Tryton, on HG, on Leary . . . look how many pages there are!”

Nigel looks at me strangely. “Georgie, interesting information means something that doesn’t add up, or a link that we didn’t know about. You need to go through the pages to find it.”

“I have!” I say hotly. At least I read through some of it. The problem is, I didn’t understand a word, but I’m not going to tell Nigel that.

“Right, well then, you’ll be able to tell me what this interesting information is.”

Nigel looks like he’s smirking. How dare he; I do all this work and now he’s making fun of me.

“Yes I can, actually,” I say angrily. “It’s that . . . that . . .”

I grab the top sheet from my pile and scan it for something to tell Nigel. It’s a page of information on the Leary Group, its board of directors, and its major shareholders. I spot a name that I recognize. “That Duncan Taylor is a major shareholder in Leary, and . . .” I pause for dramatic effect, “and is the chairman of Tryton.” I look at Nigel triumphantly. Actually, I’m not sure if it’s interesting or not, but at least it’s a link. Or should that be linkage?

Nigel looks really impressed in spite of himself. “I’m sorry, that’s really good work,” he says, the smirk disappearing from his face. “What else do we know about Duncan Taylor?”

I flick through the pages in front of me, but can’t find his name anywhere. Frankly, one incredible insight is, I think, quite enough for one day.

“Nigel, it’s been a long day. Maybe we should wait until tomorrow to find out about Duncan Taylor.”